What's wrong with there being ETs (smarter than us none the less)

On Jun 22, 6:39 am, Ian Parker wrote:
On 21 Jun, 16:30, BradGuth wrote: On Jun 21, 4:33 am, Ian Parker wrote:

On 20 Jun, 20:49, BradGuth wrote:
ETs might stop by Earth for their R&R entertainment, as otherwise
Earth hasn't all that much to offer unless you had a death wish.

Earth offers knowledge. This is what they would be after.

The knowledge of Zion naysayism on a stick isn't hardly worth our
infomercial crapolla that's flowing up hill, at least not to any ET
worth their salt. If you have interplanetary and/or much less
interstellar capability, as such Earth is pretty much worth nothing
except trouble.
-

I must say I find you extremely difficult to understand. At one level
you talk about the follies of the human race just like ant good card
carrying liberal. On the other you are obviously anti semitic.

I personally feel there should be a united Palestine within a Middle
Eastern EU (call it if you like the MEU). People in the MEU would be
judged not by race or religion but by what they can contrbute. Pius? -
of course, but it is human stupidity that is preventing the MEU coming
about. To me judgement on what you can contribute seems the only
rational way to view people.

If people are behaving rationally there is no need to study them
further, it is when they are behaving rationally. It is when behaviour
is irrational that study becomes interesting. This is completely the
reverse of what you are claiming.

The holocaust must never happen again, we need to understand it.
Hitler claimed that Bolshevism was a Jewish conspiracy. The truth is
that only about 5.2% of CPSU membership were Jews. 94.8% were gentile
Russians.http://www.photius.com/countries/sov...ciety/soviet_u...

In fact if there was any conspiracy at all it was a conspiracy in a
Russian Orthodox seminary!http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSstalin.htm

Why was this swallowed whole? Why did the genocide in Rwanda take
place?

I still say there are faries at the bottom of my garden, and tghis
sums up my attitude to ETs presence. Analysis seems to show that ET
exists apart from us and belief in his presence is in a degree
unscientific. Science is about TESTABLE hypotheses. OK String
Theory .......

There is one moral question that remains. OK suppose I am observing
the Holocaust, Rwanda, Srebenitza and a host of other atrocities. If I
then do nothing about it, when I could, does that make me complicit?
ET could at least generate a few posings of his own to help to make us
more rational. This is a moral point - I don't know what other people
think.

Rather than keep on posting I feel I ought to say something about
"American" and FTL. It seems to have escaped him that interstellar
travel (subluninal) is performed by AI. Generations simply don't
travel in a spacecraft at c/10 (or c/2 for that matter).

I think the presentation of the time paradox in Elementary Particle QM
terms is rigorous and totally convinces me. If you are not totally
convinced there is the Fermi Paradox. If FTL is possible this expands
the number of worlds that can visit us to (in effect) the whole
Universe - perhaps even the invisible Universe that is receeding FTL.

- Ian Parker

Nope, dead wrong. Not ONLY by AI. My point was to articulate
that generational craft don't make any sense - unless ET's
planet was being exterminated, or something like that.
Sure "Elementary Particle QM is rigorous, but what about
the problems that scientists discovered early on with tachyons?
Answer: Tachyons exist in BOSONIC STRING THEORY AND STILL
DO NOT CONFLICT WITH SUPERSYMMETRY IN STRING THEORY.
THERE IS NO FERMI PARADOX WITH THIS SCENARIO.
(The National Enquirer just doesn't tell you that).

All those ET's that have been visiting us were actually time
travelling to through the visible universe, perhaps hundreds,
or even thousands of light years into the past. Perhaps the
AI's were from a further distant future than the biological
ET's. MOST humans are too steeped in their own ANIMUS to
know that they might be affected by the AI's - but their
biologies are becoming more of a dumbed down human
replicate of physiological animus than growing into the
environment that birthed their species - as such they
have become disconnected from their Creator - as the
ancient Adam & Eve were removed from the Garden.

American

On Jun 23, 1:57 pm, Sylvia Else wrote:

I trust you can see the hole in that reasoning.

Silvia

I believe you are seeking reason where none exists.

Whatever your argument and however well it is argued Mr/Ms Guth will
change the subject.

Mr/Ms Guth cannot afford to lose face so Mr/Ms Guth will use any
pretext not matter how out of context to sell his/her wares.

This Zionist nonsense is typical of the irrationality of almost every
post Mr/Ms Guth utters. If Israel had a scrap of intelligence it
would use the Arabs for modestly well paid factory fodder. Thereby
lifting the whole region out of their inherited poverty. End of Middle
East problem.

But I digress from the context of this thread:

When a society like ours progresses beyond a certain point they learn
new tricks to improve mental powers as greater understanding of brain
function matures.

Our understanding of mental processes is really still in its infancy
despite new (non destructive) scanning technologies steadily being
discovered.

Genetics has yet to play a part in improving the human mind beyond the
standard MkI. I Imagine the first MkII will take up meditation and
Yoga to the intense irritation of their US Defense Department masters.

Hopefully the percentage of educated members of the global population
will continue to rise. Thus freeing many more active minds from the
everyday struggle for survival.

Perhaps AI will leapfrog average human intelligence and be used for
something other than battle planning and strategy?

The clearest evidence for the lack of ET amongst us is that they have
failed to curb our excesses, inequality, bigotry and brutality.

Unless "They" are forbidden direct intervention, one can only assume
they enjoy holidaying amongst backward savages. Attired as we are only
in the thin veneer of technological civilisation. (I use the latter
term loosely)

It would take only a few dollars on the price of vehicle fuel for some
countries to descend into total anarchy. Never to rise from the ashes
again.

Androcles wrote:
"Sylvia Else" wrote in message
...
: BradGuth wrote:
: On Jun 22, 6:24 pm, Sylvia Else wrote:
: BradGuth wrote:
: On Jun 22, 4:42 pm, Sylvia Else wrote:
: BradGuth wrote:
: Which laws of physics forbids other intelligent life?
: What sort of evolution is strictly terrestrial limited?
: What sort of planet/moon extremes are totally insurmountable for
: having accommodated intelligent life?
: -
: "whoever controls the past, controls the future" / George Orwell
: -
: Brad Guth
: On the "smarter than us" part of the subject line, it's worth
: remembering that intelligence doesn't appear to arise as a natural
: progression in the scheme of things, but as a respose to
environmental
: stress. You evolve to be intelligent enough to survive - because the
: others don't survive and don't reproduce. When times get easier, you
may
: keep your intelligence. The human race appears to have got its
: intelligence in a time of drought, but almost got wiped out in the
process.
: Then most of the extremely complex and obviously robust life other
: than humans on this Earth is simply a whole lot smarter about their
: having survived than of us village idiots, as most other life having
: survived for hundreds of thousands if not millions of years without
: their having gone postal over any sort of faith-based bigotry, greed
: or arrogance applied against their own kind, like we humans so often
: needed to accomplish in order to have survived thus far, and with not
: very long to go I might as well add.
: So ET maybe somewhat more intelligent than we are. But much more so?
Not
: so clear that that would happen.
: Substract just one stupid war from our modern day survival process,
: and as such how many global trillions of hard earned loot and valuable
: time would we as an intelligent species be ahead of the game?
: If ETs started out just half as bigoted, greedy and arrogant as us
: humans, as such they could be thousands of years more advanced than
: us, and for way better reasons at that.
: There's no doubt that we could be more technologically advanced than we
: are, but technological advancement is not a measure of intelligence -
: intelligence can remain the same even as techology is advancing.
:
: Sylvia
:
: Double duh! What the freaking hell are you saying?
:
: I'm pointing out that there's a difference between intelligence and
: techological advancement. There's also a difference between intelligence
: and wisdom, if it comes to that.
:
:
: By way of being w/o faith-based wars and thus easily a good thousand
: years more advanced and trillions upon trillions of hard earned loot
: in the black is in fact extremely intelligent. Obviously there's
: nothing on Earth that comes close to being that intelligent, unless
: it's of something ET that snuck itself in the back or side door.
:
: You think that not participating in wars is a sign of intelligence?
:
: What is an intelligent being to do when confronted by attack by a less
: intelligent one?
:
: It would be nice if everyone liked everyone else, and wars didn't
: happen. Sadly, the world doesn't work that way, and the best that
: intelligence has to offer is the opportunity to be on the wining
: (defined loosely) side.
:
:
: I tend to agree that whatever degree of applied technology gets
: noticed isn't in of itself a rating of intelligence, because that
: technology could have been simply shared or taken from others.
: Intelligent ETs do not have to be space traveling village idiots and/
: or the sort of dumbfounded morons like us, and they certainly don't
: have to have any form of inefficient RF/microwave communications in
: order to be extremely intelligent.
:
: No, that's not the main reason it's not a rating of intelligence. The
: main reason is that given an adequate level of intelligence, technology
: progresses with time. Do you imagine that 21st humans are more
: intelligent that those who put up the pyramids? Look at the number of
: people who can't program their VCRs and tell me you believe that's true.
:
:
: Surviving is the ultimate form or interpretation of DNA/RNA
: intelligence. Not surviving or otherwise allowing the demise of your
: own kind is the exact opposite.
:
: Other than the survival intelligence of DNA/RNA, what forms of other
: intelligent life are you speaking about?
:
: There are extremely complex and thus weird if not ET forms of life
: existing/coexisting right here on Earth, that hasn't changed or
: otherwise evolved for millions of years, that obviously has been more
: survival intelligent than us humans that are pretty much doing all
: that we can to trash mother Earth as we continually exterminate one
: another, as so often being faith-based driven upon greed, arrogance
: and butt loads of our bigotry that's more often dumbfounded (aka
: cultivated) by the mainstream status quo than not, and it's usually
: because of folks exactly like yourself that will not honestly share
: anything unless there's something better in doing so for yourself.
:
: Why don't you silly folks tell us whatever your obvious faith-based
: idea of intelligence is?
:
: Is having put one of your own kind on a stick being intelligent?
:
: Is having picked the wrong warlord for the third or forth time,
: intelligent?
:
: Is the allowing of others to accomplish your dirty work, so that
: you'll eventually benefit from the collateral damage and demise of
: others, the intelligent thing to be doing?
:
: Is the tactic of topic/author stalking, bashings and/or banishment,
: along with excluding whatever evidence rocks your boat your idea of
: being intelligent?
:
: I'll offer a list of what's intelligent, and of what's not. How about
: yourself?
: -
: Brad Guth
:
:
: You seem to be trying an argument from adverse consequences, along the
: lines of "If humans were highly intelligent, we wouldn't be in the
: situation we're in now. We are in the situation we're in now, therefore
: humans are not higly intelligent."
:
: I trust you can see the hole in that reasoning.
:
: Sylvia.

I rather like that reasoning. Point out the hole in it, please.
Whilst humans as a species have employed intelligence
to place themselves at the top of the food chain and thereby
become successful relative to other species we still have done nothing
to defeat the Grim Reaper and prefer to mumble incantations and
caterwaul in churches as a solution to the problem we all face.
No way can such behaviour be classified as "intelligent".




The hole consists of "If humans were highly intelligent, we wouldn't be
in the situation we're in now".

That's no more than a supposition as to the relationship between
intelligence and situations. Nothing has been advanced to support it.

Sylvia.

"Sylvia Else" wrote in message
u...
: Androcles wrote:
: "Sylvia Else" wrote in message
: ...

: : You seem to be trying an argument from adverse consequences, along the
: : lines of "If humans were highly intelligent, we wouldn't be in the
: : situation we're in now. We are in the situation we're in now,
therefore
: : humans are not higly intelligent."
: :
: : I trust you can see the hole in that reasoning.
: :
: : Sylvia.
:
: I rather like that reasoning. Point out the hole in it, please.
: Whilst humans as a species have employed intelligence
: to place themselves at the top of the food chain and thereby
: become successful relative to other species we still have done nothing
: to defeat the Grim Reaper and prefer to mumble incantations and
: caterwaul in churches as a solution to the problem we all face.
: No way can such behaviour be classified as "intelligent".
:
:
:
:
: The hole consists of "If humans were highly intelligent, we wouldn't be
: in the situation we're in now".

Repeating it doesn't make it a "hole", by which I presume you mean "flaw".

The contrapositive to "If A then not B"
is :
B, therefore not A.

"we are in the situation we're in now because humans are not highly
intelligent."

That's a valid statement; if humans were highly intelligent (which they are
not) then
we'd be in a different situation. Where's the flaw?

: That's no more than a supposition as to the relationship between
: intelligence and situations. Nothing has been advanced to support it.
:
: Sylvia.


Statements can be valid without the existence of fact, Sylvia.
The well-known example is "If it is raining then I'll take my umbrella."
Even if you see me carrying an umbrella that is no guarantee of rain
or the supposition of rain. Where is the flaw in such a statement?

If you wish to converse logically, particularly in written form when body
language such as smiles and shrugs are absent then it is incumbent
upon you to adhere strictly to the rules of logic or your meaning will
invariably be misunderstood. You must explain yourself precisely and
clearly. No, Sylvia, I cannot see a hole in that reasoning, and neither have
you shown one.

Androcles wrote:
"Sylvia Else" wrote in message
u...
: Androcles wrote:
: "Sylvia Else" wrote in message
: ...

: : You seem to be trying an argument from adverse consequences, along the
: : lines of "If humans were highly intelligent, we wouldn't be in the
: : situation we're in now. We are in the situation we're in now,
therefore
: : humans are not higly intelligent."
: :
: : I trust you can see the hole in that reasoning.
: :
: : Sylvia.
:
: I rather like that reasoning. Point out the hole in it, please.
: Whilst humans as a species have employed intelligence
: to place themselves at the top of the food chain and thereby
: become successful relative to other species we still have done nothing
: to defeat the Grim Reaper and prefer to mumble incantations and
: caterwaul in churches as a solution to the problem we all face.
: No way can such behaviour be classified as "intelligent".
:
:
:
:
: The hole consists of "If humans were highly intelligent, we wouldn't be
: in the situation we're in now".

Repeating it doesn't make it a "hole", by which I presume you mean "flaw".

The contrapositive to "If A then not B"
is :
B, therefore not A.

"we are in the situation we're in now because humans are not highly
intelligent."

That's a valid statement; if humans were highly intelligent (which they are
not) then
we'd be in a different situation. Where's the flaw?

It amounts to assuming the thing you're trying to prove.

Sylvia.

On Sun, 24 Jun 2007 10:38:38 +1000, in a place far, far away, Sylvia
Else made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:


: The hole consists of "If humans were highly intelligent, we wouldn't be
: in the situation we're in now".

Repeating it doesn't make it a "hole", by which I presume you mean "flaw".

The contrapositive to "If A then not B"
is :
B, therefore not A.

"we are in the situation we're in now because humans are not highly
intelligent."

That's a valid statement; if humans were highly intelligent (which they are
not) then
we'd be in a different situation. Where's the flaw?

It amounts to assuming the thing you're trying to prove.

The name for that particular falllacy is "begging the question."

Regardless, it's pointless to get into a logical, let alone
philosophical discussion with Guth. Or his hangers on.

"Sylvia Else" wrote in message
u...
: Androcles wrote:
: "Sylvia Else" wrote in message
: u...
: : Androcles wrote:
: : "Sylvia Else" wrote in message
: : ...
:
: : : You seem to be trying an argument from adverse consequences, along
the
: : : lines of "If humans were highly intelligent, we wouldn't be in the
: : : situation we're in now. We are in the situation we're in now,
: therefore
: : : humans are not higly intelligent."
: : :
: : : I trust you can see the hole in that reasoning.
: : :
: : : Sylvia.
: :
: : I rather like that reasoning. Point out the hole in it, please.
: : Whilst humans as a species have employed intelligence
: : to place themselves at the top of the food chain and thereby
: : become successful relative to other species we still have done
nothing
: : to defeat the Grim Reaper and prefer to mumble incantations and
: : caterwaul in churches as a solution to the problem we all face.
: : No way can such behaviour be classified as "intelligent".
: :
: :
: :
: :
: : The hole consists of "If humans were highly intelligent, we wouldn't
be
: : in the situation we're in now".
:
: Repeating it doesn't make it a "hole", by which I presume you mean
"flaw".
:
: The contrapositive to "If A then not B"
: is :
: B, therefore not A.
:
: "we are in the situation we're in now because humans are not highly
: intelligent."
:
: That's a valid statement; if humans were highly intelligent (which they
are
: not) then
: we'd be in a different situation. Where's the flaw?
:
: It amounts to assuming the thing you're trying to prove.
:

You snipped. You failed to prove anything because like so many
others you are unable to respond to pure logic and so you hide
your disgraceful manners by removing my argument.
However, I can put it back just as easily, with emphasis.


Statements can be valid without the existence of fact, Sylvia.
The well-known example is "If it is raining then I'll take my umbrella."
Even if you see me carrying an umbrella that is no guarantee of rain
or the supposition of rain. Where is the flaw in such a statement?

If you wish to converse logically, particularly in written form when body
language such as smiles and shrugs are absent then it is incumbent
upon you to adhere strictly to the rules of logic or your meaning will
invariably be misunderstood. You must explain yourself precisely and
clearly. No, Sylvia, I cannot see a hole in that reasoning, and neither have
you shown one, you ****in' rude dumb bitch.

Androcles wrote:

clearly. No, Sylvia, I cannot see a hole in that reasoning, and neither have
you shown one, you ****in' rude dumb bitch.


Ah, yes, the abuse argument. Well, I suppose that proves you're right,
and there's no point in further discussion.

Sylvia.

Sylvia Else wrote:

:Androcles wrote:
:
: clearly. No, Sylvia, I cannot see a hole in that reasoning, and neither have
: you shown one, you ****in' rude dumb bitch.
:
:
:Ah, yes, the abuse argument. Well, I suppose that proves you're right,
:and there's no point in further discussion.
:

Arguing with the Guthball or his sock puppets is a waste of perfectly
good electrons...

Reality never intrudes on Guthball...


--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn

On Jun 23, 6:37 pm, "Androcles" wrote:

You snipped. You failed to prove anything because like so many
others you are unable to respond to pure logic and so you hide
your disgraceful manners by removing my argument.
However, I can put it back just as easily, with emphasis.

Statements can be valid without the existence of fact, Sylvia.
The well-known example is "If it is raining then I'll take my umbrella."
Even if you see me carrying an umbrella that is no guarantee of rain
or the supposition of rain. Where is the flaw in such a statement?

If you wish to converse logically, particularly in written form when body
language such as smiles and shrugs are absent then it is incumbent
upon you to adhere strictly to the rules of logic or your meaning will
invariably be misunderstood. You must explain yourself precisely and
clearly. No, Sylvia, I cannot see a hole in that reasoning, and neither have
you shown one, you ****in' rude dumb bitch.

Sylvia is much like a Zion borg, thus technically unable to utilize
pure logic, much less common sense as based upon anything deductive.

Such profound Usenet naysayers are usually Zion Atheists cloaked as
the all-knowing good guys, having never once met or otherwise heard of
any bad Jew.

The mainstream status quo simply excludes all of whatever's off-world
intelligent, and otherwise puts a limited number of us humans right
next in line to their God, whereas the rest of us are at best their
minions.
-
"whoever controls the past, controls the future" / George Orwell
-
Brad Guth